Thursday, February 11, 2016

The Hoax Map of Migrant Myths

Angela Merkel's 'open door' policy for welcoming migrants from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere has been a brave humanitarian response to the migrant crisis facing Europe. The policy has not come without some negative cost to Merkel's own popularity in Germany. TIME named her their Person of the Year for her handling of the refugee crisis. However in Germany Merkel's personal rating among voters has fallen to its lowest point in four years.

There is a rising backlash against the influx of refugees among many people in Germany. Some of this backlash has led to a number of anti-refugee stories spreading like wildfire on social media and to some extent in the mainstream press. Not all of these stories turn out to be true.

The Hoaxmap has been released to document and correct some of the wildly inaccurate anti-refugee stories that have sprung up in Germany. Each of the false stories on the map include a link to a news report where the original story has been investigated and has been found to be untrue.